Matrimonial Websites For IIT & IIM Graduates Looking for Spouses

Ajay Gupta was looking for brides for his nephews who are B-school graduates. He was looking for women who could match the intellectual capability of his nephews and yet, could dedicate more time to home (translate it as brides with part-time jobs). Soon, he found that the combination was a rare one in India. The popular matrimonial websites that allowed one to narrow down the choice of spouses based on religion, caste, and skin tone did little to help him find the match he was looking for. In the end, one of his nephews had to settle down with someone who is at the same intellectual wavelength but has an equally demanding job.

Realising the real market need, Gupta has launched a dedicated matrimonial website just for Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) graduates called iitiimshadi.com in April 2014. Since then, it has received more than 500 applicants but only 70 were accepted. Most of the rejected candidates failed to furnish their education proofs – a mandatory requirement to register at the website.

When compared to mega wedding sites like Shaadi.com which has more than 20 million members, this dedicated matrimonial website hardly has listings on it. Yet, as an IIM graduate from Kanpur Shailendra Shah said, “It is much better to be able to look at the few listings where you can actually match your education level with a potential spouse than to have to sieve lakhs of profiles sorted on the basis of caste or religion – immaterial for someone like me.”

Controversially, membership criteria for the website are not same for males and females. While iitiimshadi.com accepts only those male members who are alumni of premier institutions of India and abroad in engineering, medicine and law, it accepts women from B-schools, tech schools or other colleges that share a good reputation only in India. Site’s founder Gupta clarifies, “It is not gender discrimination or male chauvinism. The truth is that in IITs and IIM campuses, men outnumber women. Lower registration criteria for women have been set to give more choice to IIT and IIM graduates.”

Besides, many highly educated Indian men have a more practical approach to life and actually want women who have the capability to earn, share their intellectual level but can devote more time to household chores, Gupta says.